Cathie Draine, master gardener and blogger, sent us this book review. Robert Rodale, not long before he was killed in an accident, wrote this book about how most efforts to address famine fail and what we can do that actually works, therefore saving three lives…or more.
Probably most persons associate the name Rodale with a vigorous publishing business promoting organic gardening. Equally vigorous but probably less well known is the work of the Rodale Institute (www.rodaleinstitute.org) which conducts research and promotes programs in three areas. The first is major field research studying the ability of organic gardening to reverse global warming. The second is an international effort to provide locally adapted solutions to the issues of hunger, poverty, nutrition and community degradation. The third is hands-on training in sustainable agriculture techniques at the Rodale Institute’s farms.
“Save Three Lives” by Robert Rodale (1930-1990) is subtitled, “A Plan for Famine Prevention.” The plan, of course, is sensible, simple, and positive in all its aspects. He makes the painful point that much, very much, of traditional aid (food shipments and the promotion of super ‘green revolution’ crops) miss the mark by light years. Much of the direct food aid (think Darfur) is food products that the people normally do not eat, don’t know how to prepare, and in some newsworthy cases (sending milk powder to lactose-intolerant peoples) causes adverse physical reactions. The grim side of direct food aid is that in many cases the shipments are intercepted by rogue armies and/or corrupt officials and never reach the intended persons.
Rodale refers to the founding premise of the Rodale Institute by acknowledging the work of Lady Eve Balfour and Sir Albert Howard, early Twentieth Century English agrarians. They recognized that maintaining healthy soil (soil with good heart) would produce healthy food that will sustain a healthy population. Rodale’s point in this book is that the healthy food aid needs to be the reintroduction of the food plants that were/are native to the people, their culture and their soils.
Rodale’s criticisms of the promotion of ‘green revolution’ crops by international agribusinesses clearly demonstrate how cultural, sustainable agriculture has been subverted to a destructive business system by promoting hybrid, non-native crops with expensive seed that must be maintained by copious amounts of synthetic fertilizers and equally copious amounts of insecticide for… food for the people? No, for a cash crop.
As he describes it, here is what happens. A cultural group growing their food in an alley-cropping (we would say agroforestry) situation with mixed crops of native food plants and small livestock is able to feed the animals and the people, get firewood, and maintain a ‘good heart’ in their soil by practicing near-sustainable agriculture.
His examples of disastrous plans promoted by agribusiness are many and well documented. He continuously reiterates that starving people are the LAST victims in a chain of destruction that begins with killing the soils by overproduction of crops unsuited to it and chemicals that kill it. As more and more land is cleared to raise cash crops on failing soil, the sources of firewood disappear, erosion happens, surface water is lost, people starve and die. The culture is not only degraded – it has died and disappeared along with the forests, the soil and the water.
However, by utilizing simple organic practices like alley-cropping (a practice being heavily promoted as ‘new’ in America now) which is growing a variety of plants and trees (edible leaves and fruit plus firewood) in the same space with small animals (chickens, pigs, sheep, goats, rabbits) creates a sustainable situation. The trees manure the soil with fallen leaves. Small animals leave manure. The surface of the soil is covered to protect the soil from erosion by scattering the impact of raindrops on the soil and to provide a healthy filter for water moving through the soil. Beneath the soil, the various root types of plants aerate the soil, nourish it with sloughed root material, and encourage a vigorous community of beneficial organisms.
The book is not an angry rant, although it could be. Reasonably and deliberately, it describes the work done by Rodale and other entities that is providing positive results for persons throughout the world.
Is reading a book about positive responses to starvation and famine of value to Black Hills gardeners? I think so. Pursue the information about the Rodale Institute, read the work of Lady Eve Balfour and Sir Albert Howard and, come spring, gaze over your own garden plot and ask, “What have I learned?” I think for many persons, they might see their garden in a new…and better way.
